Midnight last night marked the opening of the final chapter in the Star Wars saga, Revenge of the Sith. Nationwide geeks, nerds, and dweebs alike left the safe confines of their parents' basements, blew off chat sessions with their Internet girlfriends, and congregated at local movie theaters for this momentous occasion.

Many attended the opening midnight screening, calling in sick for their morning jobs, and even more have taken sick leave to see the picture during midday matinee screenings.

"This is Star Wars, this is the most important thing in my life," said one such geek. "Not even my crippling fear of sticky floors and broken seatbacks could keep me away now."

This mass exodus to the theaters may have been great for thousands of Star Wars fans, but it has left businesses staggering as vital members of their teams have collectively gone missing.

"Our entire IT team is out this morning," said Office WareHut founder and CEO Harry Sack. "Dozens of our employees have been locked out of their email for hours now with no end in site. And that damn paperclip character has gotten back into my Word again, I think he's trying to steal company secrets."

"I've made a really big mess out of our accounting system," said the manager of a local accounting firm. "Debits, credits, they all look the same to me. But we had a deadline to meet, and our accountant called in sick. Damn you George Lucas, damn you!"

Geeks, dweebs, and nerds often fill highly skilled positions like computer guy, accounting guy, or guy that goes to pickup lunch. Early estimates show that businesses have lost an average of $10,000 in productivity today because of these unexpected absences with some nerd-heavy businesses reporting losses already exceeding $1,000,000.

This rash of missing workers has angered many managers, and a select few have expressed that they are not going to simply standby and let their staff blow off work for Star Wars, despite the fact that this is an event that happens only six times every twenty years.

"I'm going down to the theater right now and if I find any of my employees there, they're fired," said Steven Fields, manager of Fish Chairs Incorporated, America's largest producer of chairs made of fish. "And next time, I'm only gonna hire Star Trek geeks."

Things are expected to return to normal by this Friday.

"The true geeks will have seen the movie on opening day, no exceptions," said business analyst Jeff Cartwright. "We expect most will be able to wait until the weekend to see it a second time.""00" style